The Cabinet of the Netherlands will not make wearing masks in public mandatory across the country as a way of fighting the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, but it will introduce new measures designed to influence public behavior, said Medical Care Minister Tamara van Ark at a press conference on Wednesday.

There is no reason to make it mandatory to wear masks in public places, according to Jaap van Dissel, head of the Outbreak Management Team. It does not lead to limitation of infections. There will be regional tests with mandatory masks, for example in Amsterdam Center. These are not so much medically motivated, but mainly as behavioral change and influencing.